north carolina

July 16, 2014 - The NC Mining and Energy Commission is taking public comments on the state's proposed fracking rules through Sept. 15. Meanwhile, environmentalists are urging the commission to reinstate the ban on the controversial gas drilling technique.

July 14, 2014 - Republican Mayor Adam O'Neal of Belhaven, NC is walking to the nation's capital to make the case for Medicaid expansion following the closure of a hospital critical to the residents of his rural coastal community.

July 11, 2014 - Clean-energy advocates are battling Duke Energy's plan to cut payments to homeowners with grid-tied solar panels for the excess power they sell back to the company. Meanwhile, a major investment bank says the falling price of solar panels and battery storage could encourage large numbers of U.S. homeowners and businesses to abandon utilities altogether and go off-grid.

July 8, 2014 - A new Census Bureau report finds a dramatic surge in the past decade in the number of Americans living in communities with concentrated poverty, with the greatest increase in North Carolina. Other states that experienced big jumps include Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia and South Carolina.

July 7, 2014 - Defenders of a controversial new North Carolina election law that's being challenged by civil rights groups cite statewide vote totals to argue against any racially discriminatory suppressive effect -- but local data tell a more complicated story.

July 3, 2014 - This summer a team of 30 organizers with the Farm Labor Organizing Committee will be working to sign up 5,000 new union members in North Carolina's tobacco fields -- part of a plan to press Reynolds American to guarantee basic labor rights in its supply chain.

July 2, 2014 - Millions of dollars in outside expenditures in North Carolina's May 2014 primary were hidden or delayed from being made public thanks to loopholes in the law. If the state Senate fails to act on a bill soon, millions more will likely be obscured from public view in November.